Crows Take Flight
by rubypop
Summary: "As a Crow first you will learn to ignore all pain, and then embrace it, and welcome it." The childhood of a Crow is never an easy one - but for someone like Zevran, grace and cunning come naturally. (Sexually-explicit content.)


**Crows Take Flight**  
_by rubypop_  
Chapter 1

In the cold room, large hands folded over his small fingers, guiding them. The other boy stood in the center of the chamber with his back to the two of them. Zevran could hear the boy's breathing, quick little breaths that came with the movement of his heaving chest. Little ribs like bird bones.

Tomas's hands enveloped his, the fingers thick with calluses. Rough but deft. He knelt behind Zevran, slowly extending his arms, and with them Zevran's arms reached too, as though reaching for the other boy, reaching out in a slow arc and then retracting, reaching again, toward the ebbing shoulder blades, toward the knot that secured the blindfold to his head.

Zevran's eyes dropped — just for a moment, lest he be reprimanded — to the flesh of Tomas's pale arm, how it moved over ropey muscle and pulled at long, thin scars. The sight invoked a memory of the first day they had met. How one of his foster mothers had crawled back, bowing her head gratefully for the three dirty sovereigns clutched in both hands. How Tomas had led him by a cord to the alley just around the corner, until the shadows bathed them, and with his long pale arm had gently begun to crush Zevran's throat, whispering to him the tales of how he'd received each and every scar.

Tomas was not speaking now. He released one of Zevran's little hands and simply observed, as Zevran continued to gesture, reaching out with liquid grace, and retracting his arms again.

Tomas stopped him then, taking both of Zevran's hands. Enveloping him from behind, where he knelt in a near embrace. He slid a blade into Zevran's hand.

It was a slight dagger. No bigger than a paring knife, its edge polished and sharp. Zevran gripped the rough leather hilt. A slow, dull ache began to pound in his head.

With a smooth step back Tomas receded, leaving Zevran and the other boy alone. The rattle of a heavy lock echoed through the cold.

Zevran waited. His heart quivered, joining the pounding in his skull. He stared at the back of the boy's head and palmed the handle of the dagger. After these short few months, the weight of the blade had become familiar. It moved him toward the boy, as though leading him, with a comforting reassurance.

The ache in his head flooded into his eyes. His heartbeat quickened. Heat suddenly flushed him, spilling through his veins to the floor. His limbs drifted almost of their own accord, with a practiced grace.

His free hand flashed up and around, in well-rehearsed choreography, to wrap around the boy's jaw, and his fingers clamped over the boy's mouth. His other hand delivered the blade, and the dagger sang through flesh, flickering through the boy's white throat.

The odor of blood — coppery and heady and rich — was instantaneous. The boy shuddered against him. Zevran's hand silenced a gargling choke. He held the boy for some time, through every racking shiver, until the body relaxed, and the spray of hot blood slowed to a blissful current.

Tomas returned soon after. Zevran watched from the stone wall as the callused fingers turned the boy over, ran over cold flesh, traced the lethal wound from end to end. In his little fist, Zevran gripped the blade. His chest was still heaving as he stared at the unmoving form on the floor, this boy who could have been him, if he'd displeased Tomas a fraction more, had failed just one more of his lessons, had cried and refused and begged at the sight of the blade. The adrenaline had only just begun to drain away, the heat that had scorched the backs of his eyes, and wet his mouth, and loosened his limbs, as though each sensation had been as natural to him as breathing.

Tomas, still kneeling over the boy, turned to him. His eyes moved from Zevran's face to the dagger, and then back once more. The silence stretched on until Tomas heaved himself up and wiped blood on his trousers.

"Well done," he said, and Zevran's heart leaped with a joy that swelled, and swelled, and resembled something like love, like nothing else he'd felt in his brief, orphaned life.

#

Years had passed before Tomas brought him back to the cold chamber. Zevran was made to stand in the center of the room, filling the footprints of the blindfolded boy from years ago. He knew, without being told a thing, to stand without moving, to wait without speaking, as Tomas sealed the lock on the door. He waited, studying the misty light that slowly suffused the room, until Tomas approached him, circling with leisure.

Zevran lifted his eyes and the old Crow's expression did not change. Tomas's face ws eternally blank, as though even the scars that crossed it held no tension across the thin flesh, and his half-lidded eyes listed dreamily of their own accord, giving his gaze a deceptively blind lack of focus.

With surprising quickness Tomas's thick fingers seized Zevran's chin and held it, forcing his lips to part. Tomas produced a long knife with his other hand, turning it so that the blade reflected the weak light.

"Don't look away," Tomas said, as Zevran's eyes flickered to the blade.

Zevran steadied his gaze on the scarred white face. The blade lifted in his peripheral vision, tracing an arc to his chin, until a cold metal edge rested against his bottom lip, and a sharp point eased against his tongue.

Tomas held the blade thus, as light from the barred window slowly faded, and the shadows in his face grew.

"I'm going to cut out your tongue," Tomas murmured. He ran his thumb over Zevran's lip.

Zevran stared into those half-lidded eyes.

The knife turned. The flat of the blade was a cold plane against the roof of his mouth. Zevran inhaled then, drawing in air through his nose. An ache was blossoming in his jaw.

He dove back at once, arching his spine in a graceful glide. His chin slipped from Tomas's grip as smoothly as though he'd been released. He spun about, pivoting on one foot, and seized Tomas's arm, snatching away the blade with one hand. He had almost brought the knife back around, aiming to bury its point in his master's side, but Tomas had clamped his fingers in Zevran's hair and lurched him upward, nearly off of his feet.

The knife clattered to the ground. Zevran struggled, but his skinny form was no match for solid muscle. Tomas wrapped his arm around Zevran's throat and held him, gripping him by the hair so tightly that his scalp burned and tears stung his eyes.

Zevran tore at his arm as Tomas ground it into his throat. He began to gasp.

"Almost, little one," Tomas said.

With another steady press, Zevran could not even gasp. He kicked his feet and squeezed his eyes shut. A dreamy light-headedness was taking hold.

Tomas dropped him. Zevran hit the floor, limbs spasming. He coughed once, again, over and over, his lungs heaving so violently that he feared he would never breathe again. The coolness of the stone floor was inviting, and he pressed his cheek against it, drinking in air a sip at a time, until the spasms slowed.

"Disappointing," Tomas said.

Zevran laughed.

His laughter echoed for some time as he lay against the stones. He sensed no movement from the man behind him. He curled his hand into a fist and struck the floor, weakly, and laughed until his throat burned with a lovely pain, and his voice wheezed.

Tomas knelt over him. With one hand he turned Zevran over as easily as a rag doll. Their eyes met and Zevran's vision blurred with tears. His narrow chest pumped and he chuckled uncontrollably.

Tomas's blank face drew with disapproval. He rested a knee on Zevran's chest and shifted his weight. The point of pressure impaled him to the floor.

"Silence," he said.

Zevran shook his head. He was only vaguely aware of the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Almost," he gasped, giggling. "Almost gutted you, old man."

Tomas seized Zevran's face, smearing the tears with his rough fingers. He braced his palm against Zevran's nose and mouth, blocking his breath, and with his other hand undid the heavy clasp of his leather belt. He opened his trousers and lifted Zevran from the floor.

Tomas gripped Zevran's scalp, releasing his face, and slid his cock into Zevran's mouth. Zevran blinked hard at the unexpected saltiness. Tomas ground him forward until Zevran gagged and winced.

"As a Crow first you will learn," Tomas uttered, "to ignore all pain, and then embrace it, and welcome it."

The tension in his expression ebbed until he once again looked on impassively, as he hardened in Zevran's mouth.

It was not the first time that Zevran had been invaded. Truly his existence, as a whole, had been a mere series of invasions, a childhood of contingency, the perfect student of survival, of cunning, of a rather unique penchant for humor. Thus he relaxed himself obediantly until Tomas's grip had eased and he suckled Tomas without force. In time Tomas removed his knee from Zevran's chest, and Zevran went to him willingly, crawling with a practiced tenderness. He embraced Tomas about the waist and sucked until his master betrayed himself, giving the slightest grunt, releasing warm bitterness onto Zevran's tongue.

Tomas shoved Zevran away and gave a sharp blow that glanced clumsily from his temple.

He departed quickly. He fumbled with the lock, and it clamored with his bewilderment, loudly and for some time, until all was silent again. Zevran slumped against the wall. He palmed the knife with a slow smile, turning the blade over and over, watching it shine.

#

They were packed in twenty to a room with almost no space to stand, and many lay atop one another, wrestling and quarreling. Zevran perched on the meager windowsill, running his fingertips over the shabby leather pommel of the knife in his pocket. He peered through the iron grate bolted to the window, watching the waves in the bay glitter with the afternoon. A small shoulder bumped against his foot and he retracted it automatically, resting it on the windowsill without breaking his gaze.

It seemed the crowd of young men shouted all day without rest, thrumming with energy that their bodies were incapable of containing. Zevran himself was usually restless after the excruciating stillness required by Tomas's lessons, but his newly-won prize had endowed him with a meditative state of calm. He breathed in deeply and slowly, pleased even by the ache in his temple, the memory of Tomas's abrupt and unsteady departure.

The heavy tones of a bell sounded five times, reaching Zevran's window from the Chantry abbey a great distance away. As though on cue, traces of an acrid odor met his nose. He leaned forward and inhaled deeply. It was the stench of rendering fat and boiling skins, emanating from the leather-working house across the canal. The sharp bouquet caused the other boys to wrinkle their noses and complain with regularity, but to Zevran it was enchanting. It filled his mind with memories of the soft dyed leathers worn by the nobles that visited the Velvet Cord, the gentle muted footfalls of their fine calf slippers, the tenderness in their touch as they cupped his cheek with their gloved hands.

"Hey princess," a voice said suddenly in his ear, "what have you got?"

A wiry, hungry-looking boy had approached him and stood glaring by the window.

Zevran lifted his eyebrows. "Sorry," he said. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"You got food there?" the boy bit out. He snatched at Zevran's arm with a grimy hand. "Give it."

Zevran merely stared at him, picturing Tomas's listless eyes.

The boy curled his lip in annoyance. "Heard you got Tomas's rocks off," he said then, acidly. "Whatdja do? Let 'im bugger your ass?"

"Want me to tell you about it?" Zevran said. "I can describe it to you in great detail if you want."

The boy swore in disgust and spat on the ground. "You weird blighting knife-ear," he said.

"Can you blame me, though?" Zevran went on. "He loved it so much that he sucked me off right after."

"Ugh, Maker," the boy cried.

"Yes, yes," Zevran said eagerly. "Would you like to know if he spit out my seed or drank of it readily?"

But the boy was already walking away, shoving the other young men aside with scarcely-concealed repulsion. Zevran giggled, and winked at him when he glanced back. The boy bit his thumb at him as he stalked away.

#

At nightfall, when the watchmen extinguished the lamps, the boys slept in overlapping rows. Those that loved one another lay in each others' arms, while those that had formed friendships dogpiled in protective groups, trusting no one else. Zevran remained at his windowsill, studying the stars, and wondered of the gentle whores and their boys that he'd left behind, that dreamed their own dreams at the Velvet Cord.

#

They made sport of catching the runaways. Any potential escapee earned a whole gold sovereign for whomever brought him back to the masters. For Zevran, who at sixteen was already light and quick and taking to his lessons with ease, this proved to be quite lucrative.

On a night like this, as his fellow bunk-mates wrestled and fought and held each other in the dark, he was listening. Even when he took part of those secret embraces, whispering encouragement into the other boy's ear, and instructing often in the ways that he'd learned at the Cord, he was alert to scheming. He knew, could read it in the desperate, glancing eyes, when flight was imminent.

His first capture was nearly an accident. He had discovered, during a friendly midnight tumble with an increasingly regular bedfellow, a loose block of stone in the corner of the apartment, after fortuitously striking it with his shoulder. He'd waited patiently for the other boys to fall asleep, and tested the stone with his fingers. It'd given way, sliding into the wall to reveal a dark passage, no wider than his shoulders, that smelled of mold and rot. He'd crept inside and slid the stone back into place, so that the faint moonlight had been sealed away.

Delicately he'd felt his way through empty blackness. He'd detected the sound of distant running water, and crept along to avoid detection. He'd wondered at the construction of this secret place: a ruse by his masters, perhaps? Or a hidden lesson, instruction in stealth and unlikely passageways, at the end of which the masters would be waiting, Tomas perhaps, with a punishing blow? The likelihood was never a small one.

Moonlight had soon leaked into the minuscule space. He'd glimpsed the canal, set aglitter in the night, and a scrawny form crawling along the prison wall.

He'd leaned too far, craning his neck to glimpse the gaunt white face.

He'd toppled, scraping his elbows, both knees, skinning his cheek raw against the mouth of the gritty portal.

Down and down he'd fallen, until he'd struck the fleeing boy, and they'd tumbled head-over-heels along the beveled granite wall, through mats of sticky moss, and into the black canal with a splash.

The other boy had fought him. Flailing and spitting, he'd kicked at Zevran savagely, and plunged underneath, and come gasping back up. Zevran himself had struggled just to stay above the water. Captivity and hardship had taught him a great deal, but swimming lessons were not of the highest priority at the House of Crows.

The boy'd must have been scaling the wall for some time, for he soon sank, and Zevran thrashed about in the water, and reached, and grasped. Without a single thought he'd gulped air and dove under. In the black water he'd seen nothing, could only stretch and hope and comb about, until his fingertips brushed the fine winding tresses of hair, and he'd snapped downward, quick as a dolphin, and hooked both arms around the bony chest, and hauled the boy up, and up.

Into the sweet air once more, and the canal had churned around them so wickedly. Zevran had kicked and kicked, dragging the unconscious boy along. He'd blindly fought toward the city lights, praying in this blackness that the shore was not far. And somehow soon he'd made it, collapsing onto fine sand, coughing up the black water, and he heaved the boy before the feet of his masters, who'd been waiting, and watching, all along.

On this night, as Zevran turned his new blade over and over at his perch in the windowsill, he met the eyes of the boy he had caught so many years ago.


End file.
